The Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion

And the FAKE Wizard!

Jun 20, 2025

Here’s another older post from “Trules Rules”, published in 2018, because, as of today, I’m still in search of my C-c-c-ourage, as Bert Lahr and his Cowardly Lion were, in the classic 1939 Hollywood film, “The Wizard of Oz”.

Perhaps too, I’m looking for my brain and heart, as the Scarecrow and Tin Man were, as they accompanied the tornado-blown Dorothy, in her adventure down the Yellow Brick Road in search of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz and her way back to Kansas, eventually on her magical balloon trip back home.

However, by now, having seen the film countless times, we all know that the Wizard was a “fake”, sort of like the naked king in no clothes, pulling all the phony levers and gizmos behind his charlatan curtain of rubery, cruelty, and bluster.

Sound familiar?

Remember this is:

“November 1, 2018

How many times have you watched the fantabulous movie, The Wizard of Oz? Me? I don’t know exactly, but… probably at least eight years in a row, on TV, every year from ages six to fourteen. All in black and white. Not just the beginning of the movie, in Kansas, before the swirling tornado and the Wicked Witch of the East. No, I watched the whole thing… on our family’s black and white General Electric TV back in New Yawk in the 1950s.

The first time I saw the film in color, I was shocked. I was sure it was some kind of mistake, or clearly, a MGM colorization process.

I said to myself,

How can the Yellow Brick Road actually be yellow? The poppy fields bright orange? The ruby slippers red? The Emerald City green? In color? Impossible!

By then though, by the time I saw The Wizard of Oz the way it was so beautifully filmed and intended to be seen back in 1939, I was “all grown up”. I had already stopped watching the movie every Easter, and I only saw it a few more times as the decades rolled by.

Still, those were early, formative years that made an indelible impression on my gullible and innocent mind, and as a result… I’ve never forgotten the film or its iconic characters.

In fact, I still have a black and white publicity photo from the film on my office wall in Echo Park today, one that I bought in Lawrence, Kansas in the 1970s.

I have a pair of red ruby slippers that I bought in an art gallery, also in Echo Park, Los Angeles, hanging just above my keyboard. And I make Exsel, my eleven-year-old adopted son from Indonesia, watch it every year… just about Easter time.

I remember everything about the film… the story, the songs, the art direction, eventually the colors, and especially… the characters: Judy Garland’s homesick and wide-eyed Dorothy, Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the East, Billie Burke’s Glinda, Good Witch of the West, Frank Morgan’s spineless Wizard, all the Munchkins, Toto the Dog, and in particular, Dorothy’s three magical traveling companions: Ray Bolger’s brilliant, rubber-legged Scarecrow in search of a brain, Jack Haley’s stoic and creaky Tin Man in search of a heart, and Bert Lahr’s stuttering and cowardly Lion in search of some c-c-c-ourage.

I never knew which of the three to identify with. I loved them all. I saw myself in all three. I don’t know about little girls watching the film; maybe they identified with Dorothy. Or the Glinda, the Good Witch? But I wouldn’t be surprised if they, too, identified with one of Dorothy’s delinquent and flawed traveling companions. I mean, who wasn’t in need of a better brain, a bigger heart, or more c-c-c-ourage.

I think I fell in love with the Scarecrow first. Just the way he moved… Bolger’s rubbery legs falling out from under him, too much straw poking out from his neck and ankles, his self-deprecating, goofy, and ever-searching way of talking because he never thought he was smart enough. Sure, I was smart, but I’d imitate Bolger for years, having my own legs fall out from under me, as I became a comic performer, a modern dancer, a rubber-legged clown myself. Of course, I loved the way Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor tapped their way into our hearts in Singin’ in the Rain, and I loved anything flawless Fred Astaire ever did on the silver screen, but when it came to character acting and dancing, it was always Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow that seared my memory with inspiration and humor. I was the Scarecrow. Perhaps… I still am.

The Tin Man? He was too stiff. Not as much fun as the Scarecrow or the Cowardly Lion. But only for… a lack of heart. Every time he cried, he’d lock himself up. Rusted. He was in perpetual need of his oil can. How was I like him? Well, during those black and white childhood years, I was super repressed. I never took a dance step, never sang a note. I was too self-conscious. Too afraid of my parents, my grandparents, my sister, my friends… laughing at me. I was “locked up” inside myself. I was never encouraged to express myself. To know who I was. As a result, I became a volcano waiting to erupt. All through high school and college, I was my own kind of Tin Man. Plastered-down hair until the late 60s, I was a suppressed, parent-pleasing machine, a pre-med, pre-determined wannabe… until I “turned on, tuned up in, and”… exploded… by becoming an artist, a performer, a producer of my own work, a clown. I didn’t cry, so I didn’t need an oil can, but seeing Jack Haley trapped inside his tin armor, I knew that I too, needed… out.

The Cowardly Lion? Bert Lahr? Who couldn’t identify with him? I loved the way he moved. Big. Bombastic. Awkward and jumpy. And the way he tawked.

Why’d ya have to go an’ hit me? Is my nose bleedin’?

Like a big vaudeville crybaby, via downtown Yiddish New Yawk. One of my all-time favorite characters from any movie.

C’mon, get up ‘n fight, ya shiverin’ junkyard! Put ya hands up, ya lop-sided bag o’ hay!

Lahr was funny… but vulnerable too. And I think it was the latter… the vulnerability… that most endeared him to me. Along with each of the others’. They were all vulnerable, had big “holes” in their psyches…. lacking brains, hearts, and c-c-c-ourage.

Or so they thought. But, of course, that was the beauty of Frank Baum’s book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; each of the three “failed”, vulnerable characters already had exactly what they claimed they lacked. It just took the defense of their beloved Dorothy - to discover it.

Ironically, it was, instead, the “great and powerful OZ”, the Wizard himself, who was the phony shaman, I mean, salesman.

Sound familiar? A little like our current Wizard, I mean, our current President, the “great and powerful” Trump.

A phony and braggart extraordinaire. You want brains? I mean, tax cuts for the middle class? No problem. On their way. Even when Congress isn’t in session! The Honduran caravan heading north to the American border through Mexico? Why, of course, it’s filled with Middle Eastern terrorists threatening proud, American-born citizens and self-claimed, xenophobic “nationalists”.

Proof? Who needs any? It’s all “fake news”. The Democratic Party? The State of California? The so-called “free press”? Traitors all! Trying to strip away American health care coverage, tax cuts, 401(k)s, guns, and of course, the charlatan’s, I mean, the President’s… re-claimed “national greatness”.

You want more comparisons of Donald Trump to the fake and impotent Wizard of Oz? Not necessary. (Just wait until 2025!)

But I guess that’s why Hollywood superhero movies… along with Facebook, Twitter, iPhones, video games, and all the rest of our modern-day, escapist social media and technology – are all so popular. Sadly… even necessary. It’s a hard, grim, real world out there, amigos. Hard to stomach. Hard to accept. Full of conflict, hatred, and contempt for “the other”. And this seems profoundly true, even more sadly, on every side of whatever aisle… all over the world.

Far better, far preferable, to watch the Wizard of Oz… in all its glorious Technicolor, escapist fantasy… for the ninth, tenth, or maybe even… for the 100^th time.

Far easier to identify with the brilliant Scarecrow, the compassionate Tin Man, or the heroic Lion, than to figure out the fake news, the real news, or the painful reality of modern-day political life.

Available for iOS and Android

We all better get out there to vote next November. The midterm elections DO MATTER! But who do we vote for? Which candidates? Which propositions? It’s simple. It’s confusing. It’s hopeless. It’s necessary!

I vote for the Scarecrow with a new Brain. No, make that the Tin Man with a new heart. No, wait. Definitely make that the no-longer Cowardly Lion, with his new-found, hard-earned… c-c-c-c-ourage.

Who do you vote for?

I mean, which one are you?

from OZ,

the cowardly, big-hearted & straw-brained,

Trules

The Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion

And the FAKE Wizard!

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